Spring 2015 #7: Gladiator (2000) - Ridley Scott

A $100 million Roman epic that is also a Best Picture winner? Hard to believe in this century, with the past decade being dominated by low-budget indies such as Slumdog Millionare in 2009, The Hurt Locker in 2010, and The Artist in 2012. But it wasn’t so long ago that massive blockbusters like Titanic, Lord of the Rings, and Braveheart were taking home the golden statue.

I think the digital age can be thanked for the improved quality of small independent films, since passion projects like Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) can be made for as little as $1.8 million, or Whiplash (2014) for $3.3 million, and then can be successful enough to get the Academy’s attention.

But anyway, since I have 100 more gifs of this film, I might as well talk about it. Gladiator tells the almost true story of the Roman Emperor Commodus, who became the sole emperor of Rome at the age of 19 when his father, Marcus Aurelius, died in 180 AD.

Here we have a young Joaquin Phoenix, as Commodus, pouring his heart out to his father, after being told that the general Maximus (Russell Crowe) will succeed his father instead of him.

Poor Joaquin. All he wanted was for his father to love him! Well Commodus takes the throne by his own doing, forces Maximus to be executed, and then ascends to the throne in a wonderful celebration of 150 days of Colosseum games.

But you can’t kill Maximus! He escapes, then gets captured as a slave and sold into the games as a gladiator. Okay so maybe the film is about Maximus and not Commodus, but I’m here for the brother from Signs and not Javert from Les Misérables. 

And I know Commodus is a corrupt leader and probably sexually attracted to his sister, Lucilla… but I think Joaquin is beautiful and I can’t stay mad at him.

I call it the Jamie Lannister effect.

Anyway the script went through a million rewrites, which I think can be chalked up to arguments between the historians hired to work on the film and the studio people who were worried about narrative. Apparently, after several drafts, Russell Crowe said to one of the writers, “Your lines are garbage but I’m the greatest actor in the world, and I can make even garbage sound good.” I would like to see the movie fail after a declaration like that, but Russell Crowe did win an Oscar for this… so I don’t know.

But he’s right, so many of the lines are garbage. It’s like they focused on the massive sets and costumes (over 27,500 pieces of armor were made for the film), that they didn’t care what anyone was actually saying, as long as it looked awesome.

And it does look awesome. The first scene is a battle between the Roman army and the Germanic tribe in the last holdout against the Roman Empire’s expansion. Beyond that, the Gladiator scenes themselves are cool as hell.

Oops wrong gladiators. Despite the insane effects, including CGI shots of the entirety of Rome and a packed Colosseum, the film is lacking in character stuff. Apparently, Maximus himself wasn’t even a likable protagonist until they added all of this weird stuff about the afterlife.

So the film added a ton of random dream sequences where Maximus ponders his life after death, wondering about the meaning of it all. He was just an innocent farmer who became a general who became a slave who became a gladiator!

You do you Commodus. Anyway the film went on to gross $457 million, it won five Oscars including Best Picture, and it is #46 on the IMDb Top 250. The first Best Picture winner of the 21st century!

Drinking Buddies (2013) - Joe Swanberg

I know I haven’t posted in a few weeks, and I have going back to school to blame for that. Unfortunately I have been seeing a bunch of movies I wished I had written about sooner. I’ve seen 7 of the 9 Best Picture nominees this year! But anyway, I randomly decided to take a break from studying, and within a minute of searching Netflix (a new record), I found a movie I knew I had to watch.

Let me start by saying I have a huge pet peeve with movie posters listing actors’ names in a format that perfectly matches the actors shown in the poster, but they’re in the wrong order. Why do that? But anyway. The indie film was released digitally first back over the summer, and then quietly released in a few theaters like it didn’t even give a fuck if anyone saw it. The tiniest budget film you ever did see, it really shows the future of the digital film industry and how it can get indies directly to its audience, much like Beyoncé and her seminally classic album, Beyoncé. 

Yes Queen. Anyway. So the story is about two couples, one played by 50/50 and Pitch Perfect’s Anna Kendrick, and New Girl and Safety Not Guaranteed’s Jake Johnson.

The other couple is made up of House and Tron’s Olivia Wilde and some guy named Ron Livingston.

Anyway. Olivia and Jake’s characters work at a Craft Beer factory together, and they are super flirty and the kind of people you would meet at the beginning of a nice and boring rom com. But this is not that!

The two couples go on a retreat beach house type trip for a weekend, and it starts to become obvious that neither of the couples seem like they belong together. Olivia and Jake’s characters are the extroverted, fun-loving types while Anna and Ron’s are quiet and reserved. And the two couples appear to be dating the wrong members of the group VERY early on in the film.

The film is very subtle in its action, but–and I didn’t know this until after I finished it–ALL of the dialogue is improvised! I had a slight hunch about this while watching the film, but if I had known it beforehand, I would’ve been so impressed the entire time with how well the actors handle each scene. And you can tell all of the focus is on the characters, because there is so little cutting. Most scenes are one shot entirely (which makes sense with the improv structure), and the camera follows the two actors as they work out their turmoils with this impending awkward situation.

The Jake/Olivia relationship is especially weird, because neither of them ever seem to notice their romantic tension throughout the film. They just seem like… as the title suggests… buddies. They laugh together, their relationship is so much more playful than the real couple, Jake and Anna’s characters. But even when you’re sure you know how this movie is going to end, you’re COMPLETELY wrong.

That’s what I thought was so great about a film that had nothing to work with but four great actors. The incredible things it does with subtlety, and scenes that often include so little action, is so thought-provoking and real. The film asks the question very profoundly: how do we know if the person we are currently in love with is “the one?" 

I suggest everyone go see this movie. It’s quirky in its approach, but going in with any love for these actors will only enhance the viewing experience. I am seriously impressed.